Freckles

by Amy Lane

  The other was that he really wished Carter was here.

  Sandy wasn’t sure what Carter would have done, exactly—he wasn’t necessarily Captain Rescue—but he probably would have smiled and made awkwardly funny conversation and soothed Helena in the kitchen when it looked like she was losing her nut.

  And he would have been warm and kind and there—an actual person that Sandy knew and liked and was attracted to, who liked dogs and schmoopy romance movies and his own home cooking. He could have told Helena what she’d done wrong with the turkey and told Sandy what to buy at the store.

  He would have talked to Alexis about his spoiled adorable dog and bored Shelley with the pictures.

  He would have made Sandy’s chest swell more than a little, with pride and affection, and a sort of longing that Sandy hadn’t felt since Rick had first grabbed his ass in a club five years ago and Sandy had thought, This guy is out of my league.

  Carter was out of his league too—but Carter didn’t know that, and Sandy wasn’t going to tell him.

  “What’re you thinking, Uncle Sandy?” Alexis’s voice pulled him out of his reverie, and he realized they hadn’t said a word since they’d fled the tiny house in the almost rural area between Mariposa and Auburn Boulevard.

  “I’m thinking that if there is a god, those three jack-holes will be gone before we get home.”

  Alexis laughed—probably at the word jack-hole, even if she was twenty-one years old. “Yeah. Grandma really does know how to pick ’em. Is that why she never tried to find a Mr. Helena Corrigan?”

  Sandy grunted thoughtfully. “Could be. I think . . .” He let out a sigh. “I think she just got . . . picky. When we were little, the guy had to like kids. When we got bigger, he had to like her cooking. When we moved out of the house, he had to adore her politics. I think, mostly, she just wanted to live her life the way she wanted to live it, and didn’t know how to make a guy see that this wasn’t a bad thing.”

  “Hunh.” Alexis had worn her dyed hair in barrettes today, and she fiddled with one of them, pulling her hair back again and repositioning the little metal clip. “What about you? Are you like that?”

  Sandy thought about it. “No.” Knock wood. “Or I hope not. I mean, I went back to school in my late twenties when I already had a tech certificate. I broke up with Rick because he really didn’t want to be a part of that—but we gave it a chance, you know? I think I could accept someone, warts and all. You?”

  “Oh yeah.” But she wasn’t really focused on the question. “Carter is doing something really nice for the Burkes, did I tell you that?”

  It felt like wishing Carter were there had conjured up his name.

  “No, what’s he doing?”

  “Well, he took them on as a consulting case, to see if he could give them enough leverage so they could go to court and get their—” she giggled “—their jack-hole of a neighbor to clean up the antifreeze spill and block it all in with concrete. And after meeting them—and corresponding with the neighbor, who basically said, ‘Fuck off!’—he decided to file a motion to sue, and go for loss of property and mental distress. The Burkes—well, you know how sweet they are, and when they got all horrified and said, ‘We don’t want to cause any trouble!’ Carter just looked them in the eye and said, ‘Please, let me fight for you.’”

  Sandy’s heart went from the cha-cha at the mention of Carter’s name to the flamenco at hearing that yes, his quiet Mr. Crazy-pants really was a hero.

  “That’s awesome,” he said, feeling a little verklempt. “He’s a good guy.”

  “He’s the best,” Alexis said with certainty. She cast Sandy a winsome glance. “So he’s barely good enough for my Uncle Sandy.”

  He reached across the seat and ruffled her hair. “And I’m barely good enough for you. So, what do you think we should get for dinner if they don’t have chicken?”

  “Spaghetti. If I can’t fuck it up, Grandma can’t either.”

  God, she was a good kid. “Deal. Traditional Thanksgiving spaghetti, coming right up.”

  They did it all—spaghetti and store-bought roast chickens and store-bought dressing, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese. And they topped it off with store-bought apple pie with ice cream, and, thank the gods, Kahlúa. The three ministers of awkward left around the time Sandy, Alexis, and Shelley finally gave up and sank into the beanbag chairs, Mary Poppins playing on the television against the wall. By then, they were all just the littlest bit tipsy, and Sandy could only be grateful—with any luck, those people would never enter his life again.

  He was just beginning to contemplate going back for leftovers of chicken and gravy or dozing off, when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

  How was your day?

  Sandy chuckled to himself. Weird. Yours?

  Pause.

  Long enough to have Sandy scrambling in the lime-corduroy beanbag chair he was slouching in, trying to find a way to sit up.

  “Mommeeee . . .” Alexis moaned, “make Sandy stop crunching!”

  “Sandy, stop crunching,” Shelley responded in a monotone. He gave a sigh and a heave, and flopped over to his stomach, promising that he’d buy his mother some real furniture for Festivus or whatever they were celebrating this year.

  What happened? he asked, a little alarmed.

  Nothing. Mom loved Freckles. The feeling was mutual.

  Well Freckles is very lovable. Why don’t I believe nothing happened?

  We’ll talk tomorrow.

  And for a moment, Sandy thought, Yeah, that’s it. We’ll talk tomorrow so he can blow me off. Because Carter really was out of his league, and if three years with Rick hadn’t made a relationship a lock, what was a week of flirting and a few kisses going to mean? And Rick had seemed solid enough to begin with, but in the end, Sandy had realized something. Rick had wanted Sandy just enough to be with him when he was there. Waiting for Sandy, hoping for time together—that had just been too damned hard.

  Sandy had sort of been hoping that Carter would be grown-up enough to make their time together count. His disappointment now, when it seemed like he wasn’t that grown-up, was acute.

  Then the next text came through.

  I missed you all day.

  Oh. This wasn’t the same thing even a little.

  Sandy thought poignantly of the quiet ache in his chest that had grown steadily during day. It was nothing compared to his reaction to the wistfulness of that text.

  I missed you too.

  I’m sorry if that’s stupid or needy. I’m not even a real dog owner yet.

  What makes you a real dog owner?

  I think she needs to get fixed and trained and learn that she’s pooping when I’m making screaming sounds over her head.

  Sandy laughed. He’d watched Carter do that exact thing on Sunday, when, on a whim, he’d imposed on a “friend” to study, and ended up spending an amazing day doing nothing to write home about.

  He wanted more days like that.

  He texted, I think the screaming sounds over her head qualify you. But don’t forget her appointment on Tuesday anyway.

  Do you work then?

  Yes.

  Good. I don’t want her to be alone.

  Aw. You are a really good man, Carter.

  Pause.

  I’m not really. I’m getting in the car now—no Bluetooth. I’ll see you tomorrow.

  Sandy frowned at his phone, not sure why he felt so unsettled. He liked this guy—saw something decent in him, something worthwhile. It wasn’t the grown-up job or his hapless, doomed efforts to keep a two-pound menace from destroying his upscale house. It was all of it—his gentleness, his shyness, the way he groped Sandy’s ass like a sex machine when they were making out on the couch.

  What on earth could make this guy think he was anything other than a catch?

  Carter wasn’t lying about how much his mother adored Freckles.

  Lydia Embree and her husband, Garrett, had worked hard for forty years of their lives. They’d had Cart
er—surprise!—in Lydia’s eighteenth year of tenure at the law firm where she’d worked, and since that was before the Family and Medical Leave Act, she had treated pregnancy and delivery as though she’d been taking an extended vacation, and had Carter in daycare and on formula by the time he was three weeks old.

  She spoke of this proudly—she’d worked in a man’s world back then, and by God, she had showed them that maternity didn’t soften her one bit, hadn’t she? The week after Carter had gone to daycare, she’d worked a sixty-hour week and filed six motions. She’d been in criminal law, too, a defense lawyer, and prosecuting attorneys were mean bastards who hadn’t been afraid to make cracks about her weight gain or breast size while she’d been up in front of the judge.

  Carter privately wished she had more stories about his first smile, or his first steps, than of her win/loss record, but that was neither here nor there. His father had died just two years after retirement, and Carter continued to fulfill his duty as his mother’s son and only remaining relative by visiting her in her upscale Auburn retirement villa at least once a month.

  He usually dreaded those visits.

  Mostly because the only thing they had in common was his job, and he really loathed his job.

  For three months, he’d had Greg, but Greg had never come to visit his mother, and now that he had some distance from that situation, he knew why. (Two weeks? Whatever. It was distance.)

  He and Greg had really meant nothing to each other, and that was that. Carter had seemed like a nice meal ticket, until it turned out that his job actually took some time out of his life. Greg had seemed like Carter’s magic carpet out of his job, until it turned out that Carter was his own damned magic carpet, and he was going to have to change his own damned life, and that included his stupid, soul-sucking, life-killing job.

  But that didn’t mean Freckles and Sandy hadn’t been incentive.

  A thing he’d tried hard to put to words as he and his mother sat down to a modest home-cooked turkey breast, with mashed potatoes and green-bean casserole.

  He’d made reservations for her at one of those restaurants that did Thanksgiving Day seatings, but she’d had him cancel—his mother, always the queen of the elegant, home-cooked meal, even if it was in her tiny, single-person kitchenette. Of course, now that he had Freckles, sitting placidly on a folded towel on the seat next to him, gnawing on a rawhide chew, dining in seemed like the better option. He wasn’t sure a restaurant would be so pro on dogs at the table.

  His mother, on the other hand, kept sneaking her teeny bits of turkey. Given that she’d never even let Carter lick the beaters when she made apple-juice-sweetened cookies, Carter should have been a little jealous—but he wasn’t.

  He was just so proud that his mom was as in love with his dog as he was. Maybe that would be a place to start talking.

  “She’s adorable, Carter.” Lydia snuck another piece of turkey onto Freckles’s towel. Freckles licked at her fingers in friendly thanks, and Lydia didn’t even grimace as she wiped the dog kisses off on a napkin. “Where did you get her?”

  “She was . . . a, uh, rescue,” Carter said, because admitting he’d let a ten-year-old boy bully him into taking care of a dog was embarrassing, and because he’d started to believe—more and more—that Freckles had rescued him. “I was sort of a disaster with her the first few days.”

  “Well of course. Having a dog is a big responsibility.” His mother smiled with that special condescension that only a highly organized, highly intelligent, and assertive woman could have for her slightly introverted, nonassertive child. “You’re not exactly the settling-down kind, Carter. A dog is a big step for you.”

  Carter swallowed some (awesome, moist, seasoned just right) turkey and smiled at her unhappily. “Actually, uh, Mom, I wanted to sound you out about that. See, I think I am the settling-down type. I mean I want to be the settling-down type. And I’m starting to think I should make some changes so I can be that type. You know, sort of like I had to do to become a dog owner.”

  His mother frowned. “But you said you hired a dog walker—”

  “Yes, but I still try to make it home earlier, because that’s not fair. She gets lonely.” He didn’t mention that when she got lonely she went for the trash—he’d gotten home about a half an hour late the day before and had spent the next fifteen minutes cleaning the floor. He’d had to repeat Sandy’s mantra about it not being the dog’s fault about fifty times while Freckles had leaped about his ankles, begging for attention. Finally, he’d been able to relax with her on his lap, and he’d realized again that Sandy was right. Wasn’t the dog’s fault—and even if it was, Carter would still forgive her.

  “Well, that’s sweet and all, Carter, but you can’t jeopardize your career over a dog—”

  “Why not?” Carter asked, not caring if his mother got it or not. “She’s kind to me, and she loves me unconditionally. The companionship of dogs is worth making some sacrifices.”

  Lydia grimaced. “‘The companionship of dogs’? Is that poetry? You didn’t used to like poetry, Carter.”

  Bottle-green eyes, a wide-mouthed smile, no bullshit in his talk, hands that could cup my ass and the world . . .

  Carter shook himself away from a sonnet about what he wanted from Sandy’s hands, and tried to address his mother’s concerns.

  “I’m not talking poetry, Mom—I’m talking dogs. I want to be the kind of person who can be responsible for a dog. That means being there so the dog knows I love it too.”

  “Well the idea is very cute, but I don’t think your boss is going to be excited to hear that.”

  “My boss is a complete asshole who couldn’t find his moral compass with a metal detector and an electromagnet,” Carter said crossly. “He has no dogs because no dog would have him.”

  Lydia took the time to cut her turkey breast precisely before taking a dainty nibble from her fork. “I really don’t think a man’s ability to possess a dog should be a qualification for either morality or his ability to be a good boss. Do you have dental and a retirement plan?”

  Carter frowned. “Do you know that if I ran a small consulting law firm from my own home, I could make enough to pay for my mortgage, my insurance, and keep Freckles in high-end hypoallergenic kibble and shampoo for the next twenty years?”

  “Do dogs even live to twenty years?” Lydia asked, fascinated.

  “Yes, they do—the small ones anyway.” And thank God for that little tome of knowledge Carter had brought home and memorized on the first day. “The average is around eighteen, but twenty is well within a standard deviation.”

  Lydia gazed back at the dog, and for a moment her expression softened. “I’m seventy-seven. This dog could be around for the rest of my life.” She smiled a little, and then she firmed up her jaw to the regal This should be an A+ instead of an A- look that Carter was accustomed to. “But she’s not a human being, and I think you’ll deeply regret it if you quit your job because of a dog.”

  For that brief moment of softness, Carter had envisioned bringing Sandy up to visit, sitting around his mother’s carved-maple kitchen table, and watching Sandy charm Lydia Embree as he’d charmed Carter from the very first.

  Then his mother had spoken and that vision had faded and paled, and he’d felt his eyes burn.

  “What if I quit my job to be a better human?” he asked quietly, feeling like it was the most important question in his life.

  “But, Carter, how good a person can you be if you get evicted from your home and have to put this delightful dog into a shelter?” Carter’s mother slipped Freckles another tidbit, and Carter watched the dog warming to his mother’s usually cool presence like no other creature in history, and felt a big lump of misery grow in his stomach like an ulcer. Sandy had spent an entire day just relaxing in Carter’s home—did Carter really want to give up the one thing he could say for sure was attractive about himself? Okay—one of two things, because the dog counted.

  Sandy seemed to like him because
he was a grown-up—how grown-up was he if he bailed on his job because he didn’t like his boss?

  But . . . but . . . Jesus, the Clayburghs’ fucking dog!

  “Carter, don’t grimace like that, you’ll cause wrinkles and I’ll never get to meet a young man in your life before I die.”

  With an effort, Carter adjusted his expression. “I actually have a young man,” he said, hating that she’d segued the issue—again. “He’s . . . well, he’s great. And he’s going back to school—”

  “Law school?” his mother asked, interested.

  “No, veterinarian school—”

  “Oh, Carter,” she said, chucking Freckles under the chin. “Those people don’t make much money—and they work long hours.”

  “But it’s a good job!” he argued. “And it says good things about him. He improved his life because he didn’t make enough as a vet tech. And lawyers don’t make that much money either—”

  “You do,” she pointed out.

  “But people on the right side don’t,” he snapped, and then wished he could kick himself or smack his hand over his mouth and force the words back. They were the opening statement to a losing argument—he’d known that since he was a child. Right and wrong didn’t enter into it, and fairness was a fool’s game. Carter didn’t like his bedtime? Too bad—until he could present a coherent argument for why his favorite movie on a Friday mattered, he had to live by the rules. He hated soccer because he never knew where the ball was supposed to go and where he was supposed to be on the field? Well that was too bad; it was his job to study the logistics of the game to make up for his physical and cognitive limitations.

  And on the one hand, it had made him a really good lawyer.

  But on the other hand, he was wondering now if it hadn’t made him a really bad bet for somebody’s significant other.

  His mother laughed indulgently, and for a strange, surrealistic moment, he almost expected to get a piece of turkey slipped between his lips.

  “Carter, just enjoy the dog and keep the job. You’re a grown-up, honey—you’re too old to believe that life is fair.”